Searching for suspects, Santa Ana Police released surveillance video and photos after 26-year-old Paul Anthony Garcia, seated, was stabbed with a knife and died on March 9, 2013.

Searching for suspects, Santa Ana Police released surveillance video and photos after 26-year-old Paul Anthony Garcia, seated, was stabbed with a knife and died on March 9, 2013.

Searching for suspects, Santa Ana Police released surveillance video and photos after 26-year-old Paul Anthony Garcia, seated, was stabbed with a knife and died on March 9, 2013.

Jurors must decide whether Mario Alberto Rodriguez murdered 26-year-old Paul Anthony Garcia over an unpaid debt during a March 9, 2013 confrontation, or whether Rodriguez, 26, was acting in self-defense, attorneys said in opening statements of his trial Thursday.

FULLERTON – Trial began Thursday for a Santa Ana man accused of chasing down and stabbing a homeless man to death over a $50 debt and then fleeing to Mexico to avoid prosecution.

Jurors must decide whether Mario Alberto Rodriguez murdered 26-year-old Paul Anthony Garcia over the unpaid debt during a March 9, 2013 confrontation, or whether Rodriguez, 26, was acting in self-defense, attorneys said during opening statements in a Fullerton courtroom.

“It was all about the money,” Deputy District Attorney Jim Mendelson told jurors while making his case that Rodriguez was responsible for Garcia’s death. “Defendant Rodriguez stabbed a human being in the heart, fatally wounding him, and it was about money.”

Lee Gabriel, Rodriguez’s attorney, told the jury while his client was angry about the debt, it was Garcia who first pulled out a weapon.

Garcia, a transient who frequented the Santa Ana neighborhood where Rodriguez and his family lived, had sold Rodriguez an EBT card the homeless man said had $200 remaining, but had actually been cashed out, Gabriel said.

On the day of the confrontation, Rodriguez, his father and his sister’s boyfriend, were standing outside their home in the 200 block of St. Andrew Place shortly after noon when they saw Garcia walk by.

Mendelson told jurors that upon seeing Garcia, the elder Rodriguez said to his son, “there goes the guy who owes you money,” at which point Garcia began running away.

Security cameras show Garcia running through a bank parking lot and across busy South Main Street, dodging cars as the three men chased after him.

They ran into El Chile Picante, where employees reported seeing Mario Rodriguez try to pull Garcia out of a booth, before being told to “take it outside.”

Garcia left the restaurant, with surveillance footage showing him being chased by Rodriguez back across Main Street and into a fenced-in parking lot behind a tax business. Employees reported seeing the two men argue and Rodriguez strike Garcia, but the actual stabbing apparently took place out of their view, attorneys said.

Garcia left the parking lot and crossed back over Main Street before collapsing outside of a Zumba studio. The three men left before authorities arrived. Paramedics took Garcia to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead from a single stab wound to the heart.

Shortly after the incident, the sister’s boyfriend, Pablo Sanchez, turned himself in to police and was arrested on suspicion of being an accessory after the fact. He has agreed to testify against Rodriguez in exchange for reduced charges.

Mario Rodriguez and his father, Rigoberto, were arrested in Mexico in June 2013. Mario Rodriguez was extradited to the United States while Rigoberto Rodriguez, a Mexican national, remained in Mexico.

If convicted, Mario Rodriguez faces the prospect of life in prison. The trial will continue through next week in the Fullerton courtroom of Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Leversen.

Sean Emery started at the Register in 2006. As a community reporter he covered the city of San Juan Capistrano, before later moving to the Irvine city government and the Orange County Great Park beat. He's currently the night breaking news and crime reporter, covering incidents and issues countywide.

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